Keyword Search

Composition 1

The primary purpose of this course is to improve your writing and reading skills. Some time will also be devoted to conducting responsible, interesting research and incorporating the words and ideas of others into your own writing. I will assist you through the processes of close reading, critical thinking, note-taking, thesis development, drafting, avoiding plagiarism, and revision.

Required Texts:

• Patterns for College Writing, Kirszner and Mandell, ISBN: 978-1-319-10667-6
• In Conversation: A Writer’s Guidebook, Palmquist and Wallraff, 978-1-319-06300-9

• an @pitt.edu email account which you check regularly for communiati0ns from me
• access to a printer (I will send you some files via email which you are required to print; and your will be required to print the essays you complete for this class)
• a fail-safe way to back-up all your work in at least two locations; for example, your computer’s hard drive and cloud storage (such as Box, available for free through my.pitt.edu)

EngComp005 is the first of UPJ’s standard two-course composition sequence. Designed for students in any major, the writing, reading and analyzation skills you develop here will be beneficial not only in your other courses, but will serve you well in your professional career. This is a writing class, but you will learn that the audience (better known as your reader) and sometimes the situation determine the kind of writing you will use.

This class will ask you to step outside of your five-paragraph, writing-as-a-process thinking previously drilled into you by your high school English teachers. Same basic premise here – but you will expound upon your ideas, offer more examples, evidence, and description. You are going to have to think critically, creatively, and, at times, in ways that may make you a bit uncomfortable, but all designed to hone your skills and prepare you for a lifetime of writing, no matter what career you choose.

Per the university, in ENGCMP 0005 Composition I, “students refine their ability to express themselves with clarity and coherence in various genres of writing; they learn the value of using the writing processes to generate, develop, share, revise, proofread, and edit major writing projects and demonstrate that they can produce essays that show structure, integrate evidence and organize significant content, demonstrate purpose, and reveal and awareness of audience.”
In this course, students will write consistently, receive feedback on their writing and give feedback to others; they will be introduced to academic writing concepts (including using the library, integrating sources, and using a citation system), engage with thought-provoking readings, and begin considering others’ ideas in relation to their own.

Writing effectively involves considering a variety of factors: the writer’s purpose, the writer’s audience, the nature of the writer’s subject matter, and the writer’s relationship to the subject. Students learn that language has consequences, and writers must take responsibility for what they write. Further, one of the primary goals of Comp I is to create conditions that allow students to gain confidence as they discover what they think through writing, helping them see that this process can be used in any subject, any discipline, and almost any situation that demands thought.
Finally, the writing classroom functions as an intellectual community in which students are encouraged to think freely and deeply, where difference is not only accepted but is also seen as an opportunity for learning.

Required Texts:
o Patterns for College Writing, 14th edition, Kirszner & Mandell, ISBN: 978-1-319-05664-3
o In Conversation: A Writer’s Guidebook, by Palmquist & Wallraff, ISBN: 978-1-319-06300-9
o The ability to print about 25 pages over the course of the semester
o A folder in which to write and submit journal entries

At the conclusion of our Comp. 1 course, students should be able to:
• use writing processes to generate, develop, share, revise, proofread, and edit major writing projects.
• produce essays that show structure, purpose, significant content, and audience awareness.
• demonstrate an awareness of standard conventions of formal writing.
• recognize and produce a variety of essay genres.
• understand and integrate others’ ideas into their own writing.
• understand and employ various types of evidence in an argument
• determine whether a source is reliable and valuable
• reflect on their own writing process and rhetorical effectiveness

In this semester-long course, students refine their ability to express themselves with clarity and coherence in various genres of writing; they learn the value of using the writing processes to generate, develop, share, revise, proofread, and edit major writing projects and demonstrate that they can produce essays that show structure, integrate evidence and organize significant content, demonstrate purpose, and reveal an awareness of audience. Required of all freshmen.

EngComp005 is the first of UPJ’s standard two-course composition sequence. Designed for students in any major, the writing, reading and analyzation skills you develop here will be beneficial not only in your other courses, but will serve you very well in your professional career. Yes, it’s a writing class, but here you will learn that the audience (better known as your reader) and sometimes the situation determine the kind of writing you will use.

This class will ask you to step outside of your five-paragraph, writing-as-a-process thinking previously drilled into you by your high school English teachers. Same basic premise here – but you will expound upon your ideas, offer more examples, evidence, and description. You’re going to have to think critically, creatively, and at times, in ways that may make you a bit uncomfortable, but all designed to hone your skills and prepare you for a lifetime of writing, no matter what career you choose.
We will begin with a shot of grammar (to refresh your memories) and we’ll talk about what makes good writing good; then we will move on to the structure of the essay and the different styles of writing you will encounter while working towards your degree: narrative, expository, cause and effect, compare and contrast, and argumentative.

One of the unique opportunities afforded by a class like this is the chance for you to have your writing critiqued and admired by a room full of interested, intelligent peers. For this reason, we as a class will engage in a series of writing workshops over the course of the semester, one for each of the four papers. In each of these workshops, you will bring in 2 copies of a draft of the essay you are currently writing and your group will offer you comments and suggestions to help you move that draft toward excellence. The main focus of the editing is on grammar, spelling, punctuation and sentence structure. The groups will switch with each paper, ensuring that no one has his or her paper critiqued by the same group more than once.

Textbooks:

Textbook Patterns for College Writing 14th Ed Author: Kirszner and Mandell
Textbook In Conversation Author: Palmquist and Wallraff
Workbook A Student’s Companion… Author: Kirszner and Mandell
PLEASE PURCHASE THESE AT THE BOOKSTORE USING THE ISBN : 9781319247430
(We get a special deal!!!)

ENGCMP 0005 helps students to express themselves with clarity and coherence in various genres
of writing; to generate, develop, share, revise, proofread, and edit major writing projects; and to
produce essays that show structure, integrate evidence, organize significant content, demonstrate
purpose, and reveal an awareness of audience.

Think about your favorite game: What are its rules? Do you play it alone or with a group? How did you get really good at it? Now think about writing: What are its rules? Is it done alone or with a group? How do you get really good at it? Interestingly, the answers to most (if not all) of these questions are interchangeable between games and writing. In this course we will be looking at writing as a form of gameplay—complete with rules that we have to follow as we “play”—as a way of making us all better writers. We will also use and play various games to structure and develop our various writings throughout the semester. Hopefully, this will make learning about writing fun and can help improve our relationship to writing and to each other, through play, practice, and collaboration.